THE CROSSING OF THE GYAMAN TO THE CROSS OF LORRAINE: WARTIME POLITICS IN WEST ARICA, 1941-1942

In January 1942 virtually the entire leadership of the Gyamankingdom of the Abron crossed the border into Ghana (then theGold Coast), seeking sanctuary from the Vichy controlled administrationof the Côte d'Ivoire. Leaving the cercle of Bonduku, theGyamanhene, joined by several thousand followers who riskedtheir lives and property, declared that ‘they had lefta dead flag’ and had come to ‘continue war untilvictory and the liberation of France, our dear mother country’.The migration occurred at a time when the Gold Coast was completelyencircled by hostile territory. This passage of the Gyaman courtinto Asante's North West Province is a little-known but extraordinarychapter in wartime politics in West Africa. This paper arguesthat the exodus involved a combination of ‘traditional’and ‘modern’ interests, as the Gyaman leaders skilfullymanipulated the colonial system and the wartime situation totheir own advantage. It reviews not only the sequence of events,but probes the role played by British intelligence organizationsin facilitating, if not encouraging, the migration.     

Sharia and control over territory: conflicts between 'settlers' and 'indigenes' in Nigeria

Introducing Islamic laws is a means of setting up claims overterritory in which the will of Muslims reigns supreme. Thishas led to violent conflicts, especially in parts of the MiddleBelt of Nigeria, where Muslim ‘settlers’ from thenorth, most of them Hausa and Fulani, have clashed with indigenousethnic groups which are largely Christian and ‘traditionalist’.The call for Sharia is popular among the migrants, as it providesthem with a divine mission: they have to assume supremacy overthe local non-Muslim population in order to shape public institutionsaccording to what they see as the will of God. The ‘indigenes’,however, have little interest in a religious confrontation.As ‘sons of the soil’, they want to defend theirancestral land against ‘foreign tribes’; they thereforeemphasize ethnic, not religious, antagonisms.     

SOUTH AFRICAN LAND REFORM: CASE-STUDIES IN 'DEMAND' AND 'PARTICIPATION' IN THE FREE STATE

This article offers an ethnographic cross-section in one provinceof South Africa's new land reform programme. ‘Demand’and ‘participation’ are the rhetorical keywordsof the programme. Demand for land redistribution, however, cannotbe understood in abstraction from the political and economicconditions of its supply. Similarly, ‘participation’is a managed process involving many institutional intermediaries.A series of illustrative case-studies is presented, relatingto the allocation of state-owned land; state-facilitated ‘market’access to privately-owned land; the reconstruction and partialprivatization of a para-statal development agency, which havebrought into question the viability of a ‘community conservation’project and also exposed the agency to political cross-fire;and, finally, some intricacies of the possibility of land restitutionto people dispossessed under apartheid, which raises the questionof whether the concept of indirect racial discrimination maybe applied in the South African context. Several contradictionsof the process of land redistribution are analysed: for example,the massive financial costs, direct and indirect, of bringingprojects to fruition in the short term, without resolution ofthe need for long-term support; the divergence between nominaland actual beneficiaries; political and institutional conflicts,both inside and outside the state; and routine incompatibilitybetween the diverse aspirations of beneficiaries and the ‘businessplans’ required by bureaucrats and suppliers of credit.     

A New Scramble for African Oil? Historical, Political, and Business Perspectives

It has been suggested that Africa is experiencing a ‘NewScramble’ thanks primarily to its oil and gas wealth,with the United States and the People’s Republic of Chinaactively competing for access to Africa’s resources. Thisarticle aims to scrutinize the claim that Africa is facing aNew Scramble, analysing the nature of the economic and politicalchanges at work, the importance of Africa’s oil, and thepolitical and economic forces behind the new oil rush. The articlestarts with an overview of the phenomenon labelled by some asthe ‘New Scramble’. The main body of the articleevaluates the existence of a New Scramble from three subjectperspectives: history, international relations, and businessstudies. Finally, by analysing the likely impact on the economiesof oil-producing states, it considers whether we should dismayor rejoice over the ‘New Scramble for Africa’. Itconcludes that the existence of a New Scramble or a US–Chineserace for Africa should be treated with some caution and thatthe use of terms such as ‘scramble’ and ‘race’is perhaps misleading, while the economic impact of oil investmentsis likely to be bleak.     

'Liberation' or capture: Youth in between 'hakuma', and 'home' during civil war and its aftermath in Southern Sudan

Generational tension and youth crisis have been prominent themesin recent analyses of civil conflict in Africa. Field researchin Southern Sudan in 2004–2006 suggests that the analysisdoes not fit the Sudanese war. This article examines a structuralopposition between the sphere of military/government (the ‘hakuma’)and the sphere of ‘home’. It argues that to be a‘youth’ in Southern Sudan means to inhabit the tensionsof the space between these spheres. While attempting to resistcapture by either sphere, youth have used their recruitmentby the military to invest in their home or family sphere. Theiraspiration to ‘responsibility’ illustrates not generationalrebellion, but the moral continuity in local society, also evidentin discussions of marriage.     

Informal moves, informal markets: International migrants and traders from Mzimba District, Malawi

International migration from Malawi has changed profoundly sincecentrally organized mine migration to South Africa ended inthe 1980s. Contemporary movements are more diverse and lesstied to labour, as informal trade has developed alongside. Thisarticle replaces a common ‘productivist’ perspectiveon migration with a decentralized approach, using ethnographicobservation and anthropological case studies to understand interrelatedflows of people and goods. It shows how in an emergent informalmarket for South African goods in Mzimba, Malawi, price informationdoes not structure trade practices. Historical continuitiesin the socio-cultural organization of illegal migration, ratherthan liberalized market forces, shape this economic configuration,including price formation. The research for this article was financed by the NetherlandsFoundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO).Data were collected in Mzimba district, Lilongwe, Blantyre (Malawi),and Johannesburg (South Africa) in the period from April 2004to March 2005. ^1. Samir Amin, ‘Underdevelopment and dependence in BlackAfrica: historical origin’, Journal of Peace Research9, 2 (1972), pp. 106, 115. ^2. David A. McDonald, Lephophotho Mashike, and Celia Golden, ‘Thelives and times of African migrants and immigrants in post-apartheidSouth Africa’, in David A. McDonald (ed.), On Borders:Perspectives on international migration in southern Africa (St.Martin’s Press, New York, 2000), pp. 168–95. ^3. In the 1990s, migration to South Africa has expanded enormously,and alongside it, regional trade. See Jonathan Crush and DavidA. McDonald, ‘Transnationalism, African immigration, andnew migrant spaces in South Africa: an introduction’,Canadian Journal of African Studies 34, 1 (2000), p. 2. Theincrease in regional trade is difficult to quantify as muchof this trade is informal in nature and does not appear in officialfigures. ^4. See, among others, Jonathan Crush, Alan Jeeves, and David Yudelman,South Africa’s Labor Empire: A history of black migrancyto the gold mines (Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1991). ^5. Dunbar Moodie, Going for Gold: Men, mines, and migration (Universityof California Press, Berkeley, 1994). ^6. Harold Wolpe, ‘Capitalism and cheap labour-power in SouthAfrica: from segregation to apartheid’, Economy and Society1, 4 (1972), p. 433. ^7. For an example of this phenomenon in another context, see JensA. Andersson, ‘Administrators’ knowledge and statecontrol in colonial Zimbabwe: the invention of the rural–urbandivide in Buhera district, 1912–80’, Journal ofAfrican History 43, 1 (2002), pp. 119–43. ^8. See the numerous interesting studies published by the SouthernAfrican Migration Project (URL: http://www.queensu.ca/samp). ^9. Hopes for a re-opening of TEBA remained alive, though, and werefed by election promises in Malawi’s first multipartyelections in 1994. See among others ‘More light on TEBA;not in UDF manifesto’, Malawi News, 5–11 November1994, p. 4. See also Wiseman C. Chirwa, ‘The Malawi governmentand South African labour recruiters, 1974–92’, Journalof Modern African Studies 34, 4 (1996) pp. 623–42; WisemanC. Chirwa, ‘ "No TEBA. . . forget TEBA": the plight ofMalawian ex-migrant workers to South Africa, 1988–1994’,International Migration Review 31, 3 (1997), pp. 628–54. ^10. Chirwa, ‘The Malawi government’, p. 627; JonathanCrush, ‘Migrations past: an historical overview of cross-bordermovement in southern Africa’, in David A. McDonald (ed.),On Borders, p. 15. Labour recruiting agencies competing forlabour in (colonial) Malawi were the Witwatersrand Native LabourAssociation (WNLA), and the (Southern) Rhodesian Native LabourBureau (RNLB). The agencies were later renamed as The EmploymentBureau of Africa (TEBA) and the Rhodesian Native Labour SupplyCommission, respectively. ^11. F.E. Sanderson, ‘The development of labour migration fromNyasaland, 1891–1914’, Journal of African History2, 2 (1961), pp. 259–71; G. Coleman, ‘Internationallabour migration from Malawi, 1875–1966’, Journalof Social Science (University of Malawi) 2 (1972), pp. 31–46;Robert B. Boeder, Malawians abroad: The history of labor emigrationfrom Malawi to its neighbors 1890 to the present (PhD thesis,Michigan State University, Ann Arbor, 1974). ^12. Robert E. Christiansen and Jonathan G. Kydd, ‘The returnof Malawian labour from South Africa and Zimbabwe’, Journalof Modern African Studies 21, 2 (1983), p. 311. ^13. Ibid, p. 324. ^14. J.K. van Donge, ‘Disordering the market: the liberalisationof burley tobacco in Malawi in the 1990s’, Journal ofSouthern African Studies 28, 1 (2002), p. 105. This is not tosay that tobacco production solely relies on migrant labour. ^15. In the period 1977–1998, average annual intercensal growthrates in rural areas were highest in tobacco-producing areassuch as Kasungu District (4.4 percent) in the Central Region,and Traditional Authority (TA) Mpherembe (5.3 percent) in MzimbaDistrict in the Northern Region. Lowest growth rates were concentratedin the poor and densely populated southern districts, such asChiradzulu (1.4), Mulanje (1.6), Phalombe (1.5), and Thyolo(1.7). See Figure 2. ^16. In western Mzimba, and possibly elsewhere in the Northern regionwhere average education levels are higher than in the rest ofMalawi, people look down upon labouring in the low-paid tobaccosector. For figures on education levels, see T. Benson, J. Kaphuka,S. Kanyanda, and R. Chinula, Malawi: An atlas of social statistics(National Statistical Office of Malawi/IFPRI, Zomba/Washington,2002), p. 51. ^17. Bridget O’Laughlin, ‘Missing men? The debate overrural poverty and woman-headed households in Southern Africa’,Journal of Peasant Studies 25, 2 (1998), p. 10. ^18. ‘91 Malawians deported’, The Daily Times, 9 December1994, p. 1. This is not to suggest that the South African governmentdid not deport Malawians before 1994. See Boeder, Malawiansabroad, p. 155, for an example from the 1930s. ^19. Information obtained by the author from the Malawian consulatein Johannesburg, South Africa, March 2005. ^20. Before 1994, transport in Malawi was highly problematic as government-controlledbus services were limited. With liberalization, matola (pick-upsand lorries) greatly improved rural transport, while minibusservices and foreign bus companies facilitated respectivelyrural–urban and international mobility. Exchanging foreigncurrency was equally problematic before liberalization; withouta passport and proof of recent travel, banks could refuse toexchange. ^21. Deanna Swaney, Mary Fitzpatrick, Paul Greenway, Andrew Stone,and Justin Vaisutis, Lonely Planet Southern Africa (Lonely Planetpublications, London, 2003), p. 222. ^22. Zimbabwe’s decreased popularity is also evidenced by thenumerous Zimbabwe-born youths of Malawian descent waiting forthe processing of a Malawian passport at the Department of Immigrationin Blantyre. ^23. The persistence of unequal sex distributions in the extremenorth of the country is a further indication of the popularityof Tanzania as a destination for, especially, male migrants(see Figure 2). ^24. Mzimba’s transport sector thus emerged before economicliberalization. In the 1980s, some South Africans started thebusiness by investing in vehicles and using Mzimba drivers.By the early 1990s, the South Africans had left the businessaltogether and Malawians took their place. ^25. R.R. Kuczynski, Demographic Survey of the British Colonial Empire,Vol. II: East-Africa (Oxford University Press, London, 1949),pp. 564–68; Leroy Vail and Landeg White, ‘Tribalismin the political history of Malawi’, in Leroy Vail (ed.),The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (James Currey,London, 1989), pp. 151–92; Leroy Vail, ‘The makingof the "Dead North": a study of the Ngoni rule in northern Malawi,c. 1855–1907’, in J. B. Peires (ed.) Before andafter Shaka: Papers in Nguni history (Institute of Social andEconomic Research, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 1978), pp.230–67. ^26. John McCracken, Politics and Christianity in Malawi, 1875–1940(CLAIM, Blantyre, 2000), p. 152. See also Sanderson, ‘Thedevelopment of labour migration’, p. 260. ^27. For instance, figures for the 1930s suggest that fewer Malawianswere working in mining related jobs (recruited through WNLA)than in other sectors of the South African economy, notablydomestic services and industry. See Boeder, Malawians abroad,p. 168. ^28. Interview with Charles Makamo, Mzimba district, 16 July 2004.For an earlier account of Malawian migrants’ travel problems,see E.P. Makambe, ‘The Nyasaland African labour "Ulendo"to Southern Rhodesia and the problem of the "highwaymen," 1903–1923’,African Affairs 79, 317 (1980), pp. 548–66. ^29. Interview with Charles Makamo, Mzimba district, 16 July 2004. ^30. Records of the Employment Service Division of the MGLR suggestthat entering into official labour contracts when already inSouth Africa was common in the early 1970s. The numerous ‘typical’Ngoni, Tumbuka, and Tonga names (such as Jere, Makamo, Kumwenda,Chirwa) appearing on these lists further suggest that, in particular,migrants from northern Malawi were familiar with this procedure.Malawi National Archives, file: 14 ESD/SU/34, Lists of Malawiansentering into contracts of employment, 1969–1975. ^31. The aim of anthropological case studies — also referredto as the ‘case-study method’ — is not topresent representative cases, but to illuminate wider socialpatterns and processes through the study of the particular.Here, the cases are used to illustrate the social processesat work in new social phenomena. See Max Gluckman, ‘Ethnographicdata in British social anthropology’, The SociologicalReview 9 (1961), pp. 5–17. ^32. Malawians advertise their services in daily newspapers or neighbourhoodweeklies, under categories such as ‘domestic workers’or ‘gardeners’. Often they explicitly state theirMalawian origin. ^33. This development seems to be confirmed by population figures(see Figure 2): TA M’Mbelwa in western Mzimba was Malawi’sonly TA where male absenteeism increased in the period 1987–98. ^34. In 2004, all booking-offices in Mzimba district have been closed.Stories of cheating transporters who suddenly disappear withthe money paid in advance have made people more cautious. ^35. The term is seen locally as a reference to the brand name —Caterpillar — of big ground-work machinery used for roadconstruction. ^36. Alongside the market for South African goods thus developedan informal money-transfer market, as illegal immigrants haveno access to South Africa’s banking system. Transporterscarry cash remittances of migrants, while migrant businessmenhave set up more sophisticated money transfer systems, operatingsimilarly to official agencies such as Western Union (whichdoes not operate in South Africa). ^37. Lindela is a repatriation centre near Johannesburg for illegalimmigrants awaiting deportation. See SAHRC, Lindela at the Crossroadsfor Detention and Repatriation: An assessment of the conditionsof detention (South African Human Rights Commission, Johannesburg,2000). ^38. For example, an ongoing survey among international bus passengersleaving Lilongwe for Johannesburg indicates that 61 percentof the travellers originating from Mzimba district (n = 294),expects to be accommodated by a relative upon arrival. ^39. Due to lack of uniformity in the products traded, reliable pricecomparisons between the Johannesburg and Mzimba markets aredifficult to make. Common model mobile phones, such as the Nokia3310, are an exception. In 2005, a used Nokia 3310 fetched some300–400 rands in Johannesburg, which amounts to 5,700–7,600Malawian kwacha. In Mzimba, these phones are usually sold for5,000–6,000 kwacha.     

Jacob Zuma, the social body and the unruly power of song

This article tracks the life of the song ‘Umshini Wami’(My Machine Gun) adopted by Jacob Zuma, the President of theAfrican National Congress, since early 2005.  It exploresthe wider implications of political song in the public spherein South Africa and aims to show how ‘Umshini Wami’helped Jacob Zuma to prominence and demonstrated a longing inthe body politic for a political language other than that ofa distancing and alienating technocracy. The article also exploresthe early pre-Zuma provenance of the song, its links to thepre-1994 struggle period and its entanglement in a seamlessmasculinity with little place for gendered identities in thenew state to come. It argues too that the song can be seen asunstable and unruly, a signifier with a power of its own andnot entirely beholden to its new owner.     

The Elephant, Umbrella, and Quarrelling Cocks: Disaggregating Partisanship in Ghana's Fourth Republic

Within the literature on Ghanaian partisanship, a healthy debatehas arisen between those viewing Ghana’s two dominantparties as cleaved along socioeconomic lines and those suggestingthat this cleavage runs along ethnic lines. Using election results,constituency maps, census data, and a survey of voters’‘cognitive shortcuts’, this article weighs in withthe debate. The findings suggest that ethnicity matters in Ghanaianelections far more than socioeconomic variables. The findingsdo not, however, lead easily towards the gloomy predictionsthat often accompany ethnic politics. The relationship betweenethnicity and partisanship in Ghana is far more complex. Datapresented here suggest that Asante and Ewe voters are likelyto vote for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National DemocraticCongress (NDC), respectively, regardless of the candidates theyselect. Voters of other ethnic backgrounds, who make up thevast majority of Ghanaian voters, view the dominant partiesas representative of Asante and Ewe interests but do not themselvesvote as a block and base their evaluations of the ‘Asante’and ‘Ewe’ parties ultimately on things other thanethnicity. It is this latter group of voters that makes Ghanaianelections unpredictable and discourages politicians from turningnational votes into a zero-sum ethnic censes.     

WINNING COALITIONS AND ETHNO-REGIONAL POLITICS: THE FAILURE OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE 1990 AND 1995 ELECTIONS IN COTE D'IVOIRE

Why is that former dominant or single party regimes, especiallythose in Africa, have generally survived and even emerged strengthenedafter the introduction of multi-party competitive elections?In Côte d'lvoire since 1990 the ruling party has beenable to win elections by using incumbency to present itselfas the organization most likely to be capable of putting togethera winning coalition. In a society segmented by a multiplicityof cultural and religious divisions and where political poweris a zero-sum game, the logic of democratic representation meansthat no group can afford to be excluded. Yet in the 1990 and1995 Ivorian elections .the opposition attacked die ethnic characterof the government and deliberately mobilized ethnic minorities,regional and religious (Islamic) sentiments. They thereforefailed to escape, in electoral terms, from their extremely localizedstrongholds. Their attempt to mobilize around an anti-foreignerplatform in 1990 rebounded in 1995 when the government itselftook over their ‘ultra-nationalist’ stance by excludingnon-Ivorians from the elections. The consequent exclusion ofthe opposition's favoured Presidential candidate and the failureof the opposition alliance to agree on a non-northern, non-Islamicalternative candidate led to a violent boycott and the eventualcollapse of the opposition alliance.     

Crime, conflict and politics in transition-era South Africa

Despite the potentially catastrophic repercussions of SouthAfrica’s violent crime epidemic, little progress has beenmade in understanding why violence has persisted and even escalatedsince the end of apartheid in 1994. Adopting an historical approachthat highlights the persistence of urban violence throughoutthe twentieth century, this article focuses on the criminaldimensions of the ‘political’ conflicts of the 1980sand 1990s. The advent of democracy was not in itself sufficientto erase a deeply entrenched culture of violence produced bydecades of repressive racial policing, violent crime and socialconflict. Moreover, politicized hostilities and the continuingdeterioration of law and order structures in the final yearsof apartheid gave birth to various groups that engaged in criminalviolence and provided favourable conditions for well establishedcriminal networks. Such elements were unlikely to put down theirguns and relinquish power simply because politicians declaredthe fighting to be over. Situating transition-era violence withinits historic context and broadening the narrow conception of‘political’ conflict enable us to better understandboth this fractious period and the violence that continues toafflict South Africa.     

Correction

Professor Kenneth Robinson has written to African Affairs apologizingfora slip of the pen in his review of A. H. M Kirk-Greene'sBiographical Dictionary of British Colonial Governors, Vol.I (Africa) (p. 588 of the October 1982 issue): ‘I wrotethat ‘Sir Gerald Creasy did not accompany the Secretaryof State to West Africa in 1928 but the Parliamentary UnderSecretary, Mr Ormsby-Gore’. The visit was, of course,as the Dictionary correctly records, to Ceylon and Malaya. Ican only grovel.’     

CAN THE ETHIOPIAN CHANGE HIS SKIN? THE BETA ISRAEL (ETHIOPIAN JEWS) AND RACIAL DISCOURSE

The arrival of over 55,000 Ethiopian immigrants in Israel hasproduced a situation whose social implications extend beyondthe borders of a single state. The arrival of a black Africangroup in a predominantly white country with virtually no previousexperience with such a population is unusual, if not unique,in the second half of the twentieth century. This article seeksto examine the Ethiopian encounter with Israeli society throughthe exploration of racial concepts. It is argued that EthiopianJews have been characterized as ‘black’ to a (forthem) unprecedented degree and have also been depicted as ‘notblack’ in a number of subtle and significant ways. Theexploration of the racial discourse about this specific populationis used to demonstrate the way in which global and local racialcategories exist side by side. Since Israel, like other countriesincluding South Africa and Brazil, has been shaped by, but isnot at the centre of Euro-American culture, this example alsooffers interesting insight into the cultural determinants ofracial discourse.     

The geography of regime survival: Abacha's Nigeria

This article examines the state-creation process in Nigeriain the context of military regime survival in the 1990s. Nigeriaentered a period of protracted political crisis following theannulment of the 12 June 1993 presidential election and theentrenchment of the Abacha military government. The southwest,or Yorubaland,was the hotbed of opposition to continued militaryrule. This research shows how the Abacha government utilizedthe neo-colonial strategy of ‘divide and survive’to fragment opposition in Yorubaland, and how the governmentdivided regional opposition both socially and spatially. A localcoalition of Ekiti elites chose statehood over solidarity withtheir fellow Yorubas opposing Abacha, particularly those alignedwith Afenifere and the Oduduwa People’s Congress. Newstate movements — like that for Ekiti State — promotedmore local identities at the expense of pan-Yoruba solidarityand unified opposition to the regime. The article is based onsix months of fieldwork in Nigeria in 2002, including a casestudy of the movement for the creation of Ekiti State. Overall,it seeks to contribute to our understanding of the geographyof regime survival.     

Mauritania, August 2005: Justice and democracy, or just another coup?

A military coup abruptly ended Ould Taya’s authoritarianregime in Mauritania, one of the longest-running regimes inWest Africa. The bloodless coup broke a dangerous politicalimpasse and stopped what seemed to be a slide towards breakdownand violence. Using the democratization literature, this articleexplains its root causes and evaluates the prospects for theestablishment of a genuine democracy after two decades of arepressive military and then quasi-military regime. It arguesthat several variables combined to seal the regime’s fate.These are essentially the deeply flawed, tribally based, make-believedemocracy, Ould Taya’s own troubled personality, and finally,the security apparatus’s withdrawal of its backing. Thearticle also argues that the new military junta’s firstdecisions appear encouraging enough but that its determinationto keep a tight control over the transition process and avoidthe fundamental aspects of Mauritania’s malaise may jeopardizegenuine long-term democratization. ^1. Julius O. Ihonvbere, ‘A balance sheet of Africa’stransition to democratic governance’, in John Mbaku andJulius O. Ihonvbere (eds), The Transition to Democratic Governancein Africa (Praeger, Westport, CT, 2003), p. 51. ^2. On Mali, see Zeric K. Smith, ‘Mali’s decade of democracy’,Journal of Democracy 12, 3 (2001), pp. 73–9; for the Ivorianexperiment under General Guéï, see Boubacar N’Diaye,‘Not a miracle after all ... Côte d’Ivoire’sdownfall: flawed civil-military relations and missed opportunities’,Scientia Militaria 33, 1 (2005), pp. 89–118. ^3. Alfred Stepan, ‘Paths toward redemocratisation: theoreticaland comparative considerations’, in Guillermo O’Donnell,Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead (eds), Transitionsfrom Authoritarian Rule (The Johns Hopkins University Press,Baltimore, MD, 1988), pp. 64–84. ^4. One of the very few Anglophone specialists on Mauritania, AnthonyPazzanita, thought that the prospects for democracy for Mauritaniaafter 1992 were ‘bright’, but apparently never revisitedthe issue. See Anthony Pazzanita, ‘The origin and evolutionof Mauritania’s second republic’, Journal of ModernAfrican Studies 34, 4 (1996), pp. 575–96. ^5. For an authoritative discussion of the subject, see PhilippeMarchesin, Tribus, ethnies et pouvoir en Mauritanie (Khartala,Paris, 1992). ^6. See Abdel Wedoud Ould Cheikh, ‘Des voix dans le désert:sur les élections de l’ère pluraliste’,Politique Africaine 55 (1994), pp. 31–9. ^7. There are no official statistics on the ethno-cultural make-upof the country. At independence, it was assumed that the Beydane(including the Haratines) made up 75 percent of the population.However, in the late 1970s, the government kept under seal theresults of the national census, prompting allegations that thiswas done to conceal the demographic shift in favour of blacks,who have a higher birth rate. Unspoken quotas seem to stilluse 75:25 percent of Beydane and Negro-Mauritanians, respectively.However, there is a growing consensus that the general breakdowngiven here, although a rough estimate, is closest to the demographicreality of Mauritania today. ^8. ‘El Hor’ means freeman. It is a semi-recognizedpolitical movement set up by the Haratine elites to fight themanifestations and legacy of slavery. SOS-Esclaves is (untilrecently non-recognized) a human rights organization set upto monitor the issue of slavery and assist slaves to attainfreedom. ^9. See Human Rights Watch/Africa, Mauritania’s Campaign ofTerror: State sponsored repression of black Africans (HumanRights Watch, New York, 1994); Janet Fleishman, ‘Ethniccleansing’, Africa Report 39 (1994), p. 45. ^10. The chairman of the junta has publicly stated that the fearof a complete breakdown of the state is what prompted the militaryto act. As I argue, other less lofty considerations, such aspersonal survival, cannot be discounted. ^11. The International Crisis Group, in particular, issued a reportthat exposed Ould Taya’s attempts to delegitimize thelegal opposition, including moderate Islamists, by assimilatingthem to fundamentalist terrorists, warning that the whole schemecould very well backfire. See International Crisis Group, L’Islamismeen Afrique du nord IV: Contestation islamiste en Mauritanie:Menace ou bouc émissaire? (Rapport Moyen-Orient/Afriquedu Nord No. 41, Brussels, 2005). ^12. After his November 2003 electoral victory, which the US governmentmust have known to be fraudulent, he received a glowing messageof congratulations from President Bush. This support to oneof the most repressive regimes in West Africa was bitterly resentedby many democratic activists. Initially, the Bush administrationwas the only government to demand the return of Ould Taya topower, who was called, in the early hours of the coup, by theUS ambassador in Nouakchott, as the US State Department dailybriefings of 4 August 2005 indicate. ^13. The chairman of the military council made this statement threedays after the coup when he addressed the assembled leadersof political parties. For the text of the statement, see http://ufpweb.org/transition/ce385/interv/alloc_eli.htm,4 December 2006. ^14. Author’s interviews with Mohamed Vall Ould Oumere, editorialdirector of La Tribune, Nouackchott, May 2004. ^15. Mahamadou Sy, L’enfer d’inal (L’Harmattan,Paris, 2000). ^16. The best-known members of this financial and political network:Ahmed Ould Taya (Ould Taya’s brother), Abdallahi OuldNoueguet, Sejad Ould Abeidna (both Smasside), Mohamed Ould Bouamattou(an Oulad Bousbaa), and Abdou Ould Maham (an Idewaali). ^17. See Africa Research Bulletin (15 November 1987), p. 8674. ^18. See Philippe Marchesin, ‘Origine et évolution despartis et groupes politiques’, Politique Africaine 55(1994), p. 27. ^19. Stepan, ‘Paths’, p. 76. ^20. See ‘Petit coup d’Etat entre amis’, La Lettredu Continent (Paris), 25 August 2005. ^21. Boubacar N’Diaye, ‘Mauritania’s stalled democratisation’,Journal of Democracy 12, 3 (2001), p. 93. ^22. Peter Da Costa, ‘Democracy in doubt’, Africa Report37, 3 (1992), p. 60. ^23. Boubacar N’Diaye, Abdoulaye Saine, and Matturin Houngnikpo,‘Not Yet Democracy’: West Africa’s slow farewellto authoritarianism (Carolina Academic Press, Durham, NC, 2005),pp. 107–37. ^24. Cedric Jourde, ‘"The President is coming to visit!" Dramasand the hijack of democratisation in the Islamic Republic ofMauritania’, Comparative Politics 38 (2005), pp. 421–40. ^25. Boubacar N’Diaye, ‘The effect of Mauritania’s"human rights deficit": the case against "to forgive and forget"’,African Journal of Policy Studies 8, 1 (2002), pp. 17–35. ^26. N’Diaye et al., ‘Not Yet’, p. 193. ^27. The coup leaders made a point to signal the transitory natureof military regime and their willingness to usher in a politicalsystem that was completely different from the one they overthrew.See ‘Nouakchott calm, but new "colonels’ regime"faces outside political pressure’ (http://journals.aol.com/mfg917/Lilithharp17/entries/2378,5 April 2006). ^28. Marina Ottaway, Democracy Challenged: The rise of semi-authoritarianism(Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC,2003), pp. 3–27. Up to August 2005, Mauritania seemedto fit approximately Ottaway’s ’semi-authoritarianismof decay’ category, pp. 21–3. ^29. William Case, ‘New uncertainties for an old pseudo-democracy’,Comparative Politics 37, 1 (2004), pp. 83–104. ^30. N’Diaye et al., ‘Not Yet’, pp. 122–6. ^31. Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa:Prince, autocrat, prophet, tyrant (University of CaliforniaPress, Berkeley, 1982). ^32. Jennifer Widner, ‘Two leadership styles and patterns ofpolitical liberalisation’, African Studies Review 37,1 (1994), pp. 151–74; Larry Diamond, ‘Beyond authoritarianism:strategies for democratisation’, in Brad Roberts (ed.),The New Democracies, Global Change and U.S. Policy (MIT Press,Cambridge, MA, 1995); also Juan J. Linz, ‘Crisis, breakdownand re-equilibration’, in Juan Linz and A. Stepan (eds),The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes (Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, Baltimore, MD, 1978), pp. 4–5. ^33. Mohamed Nassirou Athie, ‘Il y a onze ans, le 16 mars’,Al Beyane 14 (1996), p. 8. ^34. Since the 1978 coup, there has been a proliferation of Arabnationalist groups in the Mauritanian army. See Anthony Pazzanita,‘Mauritania’s foreign policy: in search of protection’,Journal of Modern African Studies 30, 3 (1992), pp. 288–300.For example, the military council’s No. 2, Mohamed OuldAbdel Aziz, is said to be one of the leaders of the Nasseristmovement, a pan-Arab nationalist group. ^35. See for example, Mohamed Fall Ould Oumère, ‘Ilévite le face à face’, Al Beyane 5 (1992),p. 1. ^36. Habib Ould Mahfoudh, ‘La tension’, Al Beyane 6 (1992)(Supplement), p. 2. ^37. Ibid, p. 1; see also François Soudan, ‘MaaouiyaOuld Taya: "Le Sénégal nous veut du mal"’,Jeune Afrique 1513 (1990), pp. 34–7. ^38. Pierre-Robert Baudel, ‘La Mauritanie dans l’ordreinternational’, Politique Africaine 55 (1994), pp. 11–19. ^39. Peace and Security Council of the African Union, 37th meeting,‘Report of the Chairperson of the commission on the situationin the Islamic Republic of Mauritania’ (African Union,Addis Ababa, 8 September 2005), p. 7. ^40. Ibid, p. 10. ^41. N‘Diaye, ‘Not a miracle’, p. 105. ^42. Stepan, ‘Paths’, pp. 77–8. ^43. See Amnesty International, ‘Mauritania: a future freeof slavery?’, 17 November 2002 (http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engAFR380032002!Open,17 August 2005). ^44. World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2005 (The World Bank,Washington, DC, 2005), p. 23. ^45. According to the same World Bank report (Ibid, p. 73), in 2000,the top 10 percent of Mauritanians enjoyed nearly 30 percentof national ‘income or consumption’, whereas thelowest 30 percent share less than 9 percent. ^46. Moussa Diop, ‘Quand Ely se fâche, les fauteuilstremblent!’, L’éveil-hebdo 613 (2005), pp.1, 3. ^47. The IMF statement is available at http://www.imf.org/external/country/mrt/index.htm,10 January 2005. ^48. See Nicole Ball and Kayode Fayemi (eds), Security Sector Governancein Africa: A handbook (Centre for Democracy and Development,Lagos, 2004). ^49. For a population of less than three million, Mauritania hasnearly twice the number of men in the security forces as eitherMali or Senegal. The population of each of these states is atleast three times that of Mauritania. See International Institutefor Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2002–2003(International Strategic Studies, London, 2002), pp. 207–11. ^50. Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitionsfrom Authoritarian Rule: Tentative conclusions about uncertaindemocracies (The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore,MD, 1989), p. 66. ^51. The UN Office for West Africa has finally identified this situationas a major cause of coups and instability in the sub-region.The author has collaborated in the drafting of a report to callattention to this issue and how to address it. ^52. Peace and Security Council of the African Union, 37th meeting,‘Report of the Chairperson’, pp. 10–11.     

ERRATA

The Editors regret that the following mistakes occurred in thetext of the article ‘The Great West African Drought, 1972–74’,by Jonathan Derrick, which appeared in the October 1977 numberof the journal. The main reason for these mistakes was a breakdownin communications between the editors and the author, whilethe article was being processed for publication. P. 540—line 36: The word ‘population’ shouldbe inserted after ‘West-Indian style’. P. 543—line 33: ‘1969–70’ should read‘1970–71’. P. 544—line 34: ‘Ivory Coast’ should read‘Upper Volta’. P. 546, Table: The Maiduguri figures are incorrect and shouldbe ignored (The author apologizes to the source of the statisticsfor this misquotation). P. 548—line 12: ‘eruption’ should read ‘irruption’. P. 564—note 69 refers to the sentence ‘In fact ...for tax’, not to the preceding sentence. P. 569—note 87: ‘Protection’ should be ‘Production’. P. 571—note 94 should be deleted. P. 582—line 34: ‘affected’ should be ‘effective’.      

CAMEROON: A COUNTRY UNITED BY ETHNIC AMBITION AND DIFFERENCE

This paper attempts an answer to the question: What keeps Cameroontogether despite widespread instability in Africa, despite theturbulence of the subregional environment in which it findsitself, and despite its own internal contradictions? The mainargument is that the politics of regional and ethnic balance,the chronic lack of vision as a country, the lack of real commitmentto democracy, the propensity to vacillate on most issues ofcollective interest, together with an infinite ability to developsurvival strategies, have acted to counter all meaningful attemptsto pursue common interests and aspirations. All that appearsto unite Camerooni ans is a common ethnic or regional ambitionto preserve their differences under the delusion of maximizingopportunities. However, as the ‘national cake’ diminisheswith the worsening economic crisis, corruption, mass miseryand ethnicity, making it more illusive for the bulk of smallpeople to claim the same benefits from their connections withthe big—or the not so big—men and women of power,one can legitimately wonder just how much longer the systemcan continue to deflate the disaffected.     

Social capital, social liabilities, and political capital: Social networks and informal manufacturing in Nigeria

This article addresses the question of why social networks havefailed to promote economic development in Africa when they havebeen associated with economic growth in other parts of the world.Detailed field research traces the role of social networks inthe economic organization of two dynamic informal enterpriseclusters in the town of Aba in south-eastern Nigeria, an arearenowned for the density of its popular economic networks andfor the rapid development of small-scale manufacturing underNigeria’s structural adjustment programme. Focusing onthe role of embedded social institutions and their restructuringamid the competitive pressures of rapid liberalization, I considerthe extent to which social networks in Aba constitute ‘socialcapital’ capable of promoting economic development inthe context of ongoing liberalization, ‘social liabilities’that undermine accumulation through a social logic of redistributionand parochialism, or ‘political capital’ throughwhich popular forces are incorporated into the ‘shadowstructures’ of predatory states. This article challengesthe essentialism of much of the contemporary literature on Africansocial networks, arguing for a sharper focus on the specificinstitutional capacities of indigenous economic institutions.It calls for greater attention to the role of rapid liberalizationand state neglect in explaining the developmental failures ofAfrican informal enterprise networks.     

Diversity and state-building in Ethiopia

In multi-ethnic Ethiopia, diversity has been a serious obstacleto statebuilding. In fact, the process of state-building hasbeen chequered with ethnic tensions, squabbles and conflicts.Although ethno-regional identity politics, at least in its mostviolent manifestation, is a relatively recent phenomenon inthe country, its seeds had been sown with the rise of the absolutiststate by the middle of the twentieth century. The politicalentrepreneurs of Ethiopia’s various communities have pursueddivergent ways of dealing with diversity. The dominant Amharafollowed an assimilationist policy (1889–1991); sincethe 1960s, the Eritreans and a section of theOromo politicalactors have opted for the secessionist route; and since themid-1970s, the Tigrayans have gone for the ‘accommodationist’alternative. Of the three choices that the political actorshave had, this article argues that the ‘accommodationist’path, despite its serious flaws, has effectively discreditedboth the assimilationist and secessionist options. Ethiopia’scurrent constitution may contain amendable articles. Its veryaccommodationist character, however, seems to make such amendmentdifficult, given the highly politicized nature of ethnicityin the country. In this sense, Ethiopia is permanently changedand the accommodationist formula is unavoidable in the processof state-building.